Page images
PDF
EPUB

Do you ask what is frigid? It is whatever is exaggerated; whatever is destitute of judgment; whatstrength, and is not by any means inconsistent with simplicity; but its predominant character is distinguishable from either the strong or the simple manner. It has a peculiar ardour; it is a glowing style; and the language of a man whose imagination and passions are heated, and strongly affected by what he writes; who is therefore negligent of lessér graces, but pours himself forth with the rapidity and fulness of a torrent. It belongs to the higher kinds of oratory; and, indeed, is rather expected from a man who is speaking than from one who is writing in his closet. The orations of Demosthenes furnish the full and perfect example of this species of style."-BLAIR's Lectures, Lect. xix., p. 396.

Dr. BLAIR elsewhere says, "There is a still higher degree of eloquence, wherein a greater power is exerted over the human mind; by which we are not only convinced, but interested, agitated, and carried along with the speaker; our passions are made to rise together with his; we enter into all his emotions; we love, we detest, we resent, according as he inspires us; and are prompted to resolve or to act with vigour and warmth. Such high eloquence is always the offspring of passion. By passion I mean that state of the mind in which it is agitated and fired by some object it has in view. A man may convince, and even persuade others to act, by mere reason and argument. But that degree of eloquence which gains the admiration of mankind, and properly denominates one as an orator, is never found without warmth or passion. Passion, when in such a degree as to rouse and kindle the mind without throwing it out of the possession of itself, is

ever pretends to wit; whatever is written without interest; and, especially, nothing is more frigid than a counterfeit ardour.

The genuine talent for eloquence is distinguished among very different styles. The orator possessed of it is always simple without ever appearing vulgar. He shuns whatever is tumid, or loose, or affected, or obscure; and he knows at times how much to touch the soul and to charm the ear. Master of his expressions, as he is of his thoughts, he rises, he is melted, he is inflamed, when his subjects require excellence, sensibility, or fervour. To avoid in his discourses the tone of declamation, he medi

universally found to exalt all the human powers. It renders the mind infinitely more enlightened, more penetrating, more vigorous and masterly than it is in its calm moments. A man actuated by a strong passion becomes much greater than he is at other times. He is conscious of more strength and force; he utters greater sentiments, conceives higher designs, and executes them with a boldness and felicity of which on other occasions he could not think himself capable. But chiefly with respect to persuasion is the power of passion felt. Almost every man in passion is eloquent. Then he is at no loss for words and arguments. He transmits to others, by a sort of contagious sympathy, the warm sentiments which he feels; his looks and gestures are all persuasive; and nature here shows herself infinitely more powerful than all art. This is the foundation of that just and noted rule, Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi.”—BLAIR's Lectures, vol. ii., P. 7.

N

tates a long time before he writes; for it is the effect of meditation to retrench the superfluity of words. The sacrifices which he offers to taste do not enervate his energy; they yield fresh pleasure to the auditor who is capable of admiring a natural and true expression of genius in a judicious and correct phraseology.*

This excellence, so rare, and so deserving of universal approbation, loses, however, all its estimation in the eyes of those whom a counterfeit energy dazzles, and whom the language of nature cannot satisfy.

We know that Seneca found the eloquence of Cicero too simple, and that his disciple Nero gilded the statues of Lysippus.†

SECTION XXVI.

OF EPITHETS.

STYLE loses its fulness and energy when words are environed with cumbrous epithets.

* "First follow Nature, and your judgment frame
By her just standard, which is still the same;
Unerring Nature, still divinely bright,

One clear, unchanged, and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty must to all impart,
At once the source, and end, and test of art.
Art from that fund each just supply provides,
Works without show, and without pomp presides.”
POPE'S Essay on Criticism, 1. 69.

Plin., xxxiv., c. viii.

It hath been remarked, that in the philosophical analysis of languages the substantive is nothing, as it were, because abstract, and the adjective everything, because it is sensible. But it is not so in eloquence, where frequently the epithet, not being required by the accompanying word, oppresses the period without strengthening the thought.*

Every useless epithet ought to be proscribed. The

* "Feeble writers," says Dr. BLAIR, " employ a multitude of words to make themselves understood, as they think, more distinctly; and they only confound the reader. They are sensible of not having caught the precise expression to convey what they would signify; they do not, indeed, conceive their own meaning very precisely themselves, and therefore help it out as they can by this and the other word, which may, as they suppose, supply the defect, and bring you somewhat nearer to their idea: they are always going about it and about it, but never just hit the thing. The image, as they set it before you, is always double; and no double image is distinct. When an author tells me of his courage in the day of battle, the expression is precise, and I understand it fully. But if, from the desire of multiplying words, he will needs praise his courage and fortitude, at the moment he joins these words together my idea begins to waver. He means to express one quality more strongly; but he is, in truth, expressing two. Courage resists danger; fortitude supports pain. The occasion of exerting each of these qualities is different; and being led to think of both together, when only one of them should be in my view, my view is rendered unsteady, and my conception of the object indistinct."BLAIR'S Lectures, vol. i., p. 190, 191.

orator's elocution becomes loose and dragging when each expression doth not conduce to throw light upon the meaning, or, at least, to charm with the harmony.*

Such is the case with some discourses, which seem to be destitute of ideas, although in other respects profoundly studied, inasmuch as one half of the words might safely have been retrenched.

SECTION XXVII.

OF THE NECESSITY OF AN ORATOR'S REFINING HIS STYLE. CHRISTIAN orators, do you yourselves erase such disgusting pleonasms. Pass a critical judgment upon your productions, and, together with such insignificant expressions, banish all those negligences of style which degrade the sublimity of the ideas.

It is not required that the whole of a sermon should be equally striking; but it is requisite that it be all equally well written, and that eloquence make amends, by the beauty of the expression, for the quality of the thoughts when they are ordinary; just

"Beware of imagining that we render style strong or expressive by a constant and multiplied use of epithets. This is a great error. Epithets have often great beauty and force. But if we introduce them into every sentence, and string many of them together to one object, in place of strengthening, we clog and enfeeble style, and render the image confused and indistinct which we mean to illustrate."-BLAIR'S Lectures, vol. ii., p. 117.

« PreviousContinue »